


Watchtower One

by ChocolatePecan



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Blood, Explosions, M/M, Prompto is a BAMF, Terrorism, gladio tells prompto to protect himself, ignis knows about bodies, noct rules a wesminister democracy, prompto will stop at nothing to protect noct, serious injury, trapped in a high-rise building
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-30
Updated: 2018-10-29
Packaged: 2019-08-09 21:44:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16457687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChocolatePecan/pseuds/ChocolatePecan
Summary: Through an accord with the Gods, Noctis survived Daybreak and ascended the throne as a living embodiment of light and hope. The Scourge has been cast from the star, and Eos is rebuilding.Prompto is positive about every day at his king's side, and even more positive about being in his king's bed. He was dedicated to Noct before their carefree youth came to an abrupt end, but as his partner there's nothing he won't do to keep him happy and safe. Sometimes that means sitting in a crow's nest with a sniper rifle instead of attending a festival, but that's okay.In preparation for the reopening of the Citadel as a municipal building, and as the last repairs take place in Insomnia, Noct throws a street festival for all those who wish to celebrate, no matter where they live.But even though the four brothers have dedicated themselves to building a new Lucis, one that welcomes all, there are some fires yet to be extinguished - and their flames are growing...





	Watchtower One

**Author's Note:**

> Good lord, I have no idea where this fic came from. While I was editing it, I was pretty sure it came from hell, but you know, there's something to this idea... I just haven't figured out what yet.
> 
> I've had some fantastic comments over the last few months, but it's taking me forever to get around to responding. If you've left a comment on one of my other works, thank you so, so much - feedback really means a lot to me. I will get back to you as soon as I can.
> 
> In the meantime, have a quite poorly figured out AU with a lot of BAMF Prompto! :D Comments and questions always gratefully received.

The view from the seventeenth floor is stunning. Standing at a window in the recently finished Regis Building, Prompto gazes across the skyline. It’s littered with cranes and scaffolding,but above it, where the Wall used to be, is the natural clarity of blue sky and bright sunlight. It never gets old - that satisfaction of having the sun back.

Fixing the scope to his sniper rifle, Prompto shifts his gaze to the streets below. Even at this distance he can count hundreds of celebrants as they explore the courtyard. They shift against each other like poured rice grains, hoping for a better view of the staging or first dibs on the festival food.

They’re all there to celebrate the official reopening of the Citadel, and the first public appearance of the King of Light since Daybreak.

Noct had insisted on designating ninety percent of his old home to public service. Housing rents, government administrators, applications to schools, new citizen registration, even parking fines – as of tomorrow morning they were all to move into a building that used to signify separation, not unity.

Today is as much about him officially stepping back and letting the new government take over as it is about being seen as a figurehead. He’d promised Prompto they’d take down the walls, and they’re doing it, one brick at a time.

Prompto checks the scope on his rifle, and the world shrinks to the size of a newly minted ascension coin. What he loses in his field of vision he gains in the finer details, though. The mote-ish people below now have definition, and from his vantage point he sees stubbly chins and silver hair combs, lightweight jackets and well-shined shoes.

Swinging the rifle towards the temporary stage, Prompto looks for a familiar old Hammerhead cap, worn almost through to the plastic and pinkened by the sun. Cid might be wheelchair-bound now, but you still can’t stop him doing his own thing. If he decides he’s going to ‘sit right by Regis’ boy while he’s got that deadweight on his head’ then that’s what he’s going to do.

The scope’s a good upgrade. Prompto can even count the lines on old Cid’s face.

For a moment, he aims the scope at Cindy. She stands near to the plinth but not on it, corralling her curls with her cap. Her chocobo-yellow jacket is done up to the throat. She’s obviously not used to the autumn chill of the city.

She just gets more gorgeous with age, and Prompto feels that old jolt of attraction stirring. It’s easy to settle it back down, though. He’s very thoroughly taken.

He adjusts his earpiece. “Watchtower One in position. All glaives, report in.”

Check-in confirmations come from twelve other sniper positions. Prompto knows the strengths and weaknesses of these glaives intimately, and has fought alongside them all. He gave them clearance for this task himself. They’re his most trusted. He wouldn’t let anyone but the best do this job.

Satisfied, Prompto switches communications to another channel. “Yo, Majestaaaaay.”

His earpiece pops, making Prompto twitch at the auditory assault. Then there’s the low purr of his favourite voice.

“Hey,” says Noct, and Prompto shivers. Ten years of disuse while he was mind-melding with Bahamut in the crystal has made his voice gravelly.

“Ffff. Have I told you what your voice does to me?” Prompto clicks his tongue. “Especially when I can’t get at you.”

“Not lately.” Noct’s voice depicts his smile all too well.

“You sure?” Prompto asks.

“Yep.”

“In that case, you should know that your voice – ” and Prompto mimicks it “ – makes me want your hands on my hips and your mouth on my – ”

Noct clears his throat tightly, and Prompto snickers. Bullseye.

But Noct doesn’t wait to get his own back, making a damp, pleasured noise in the back of his throat that goes straight to Prompto’s groin. Languidly, he says, “Well, you’re alone up there, right?”

“Sure hope so.” Prompto knows he is; sweeping his location is the first step of setting up a sniper nest.

Noct drawls, “So improvise.”

“Hah! Improvise how? Are you suggesting that I give myself a handjob? Trying to work here, dude.”

“Nope. You’d leave comms on and I’d like to get through this afternoon without a hard-on.” Noct laughs, low enough to trigger want in Prompto’s belly. “I’ll see to you later, _citizen_.”

Prompto might have got in an early shot, but now he’s ruffled and has a desire he can’t see to for a while. “Yeah, well I’m gonna hold you to that.”

“You’d better.” Noct’s steps echo on the marbled floor of the Citadel’s foyer. “Not like I won’t remember on my own, though.”

Prompto instructs Noct to wait before stepping outside, and makes him confirm he heard before switching comms channels.

“Redeemer is about to exit the Citadel. Give me a waycheck,” he says to his glaives. He waits for each of them to confirm that there’s no suspicious activity in their zones before reminding them, “Keep your eyes peeled and your mind on the job. Nobody here’ll miss out on the festivities. There’ll be plenty for us at the after party.”

Prompto scans his own specified area, seeing nothing of special concern, before he switches channels back to Noct.

“Okay, lover, you’re good to go.”

“Thanks,” Noct says, but simplicity of the word undermines the timbre of his voice.

“What for?” Prompto hears the thud of the draw bar on the Citadel’s doors before they’re swung wide, their pitch-black carvings absorbing the light.

Noct emerges onto the Citadel’s landing, and Prompto sharpens his concentration. He’s every bit the stately figure, stood there in a sharp pinstriped suit, his thorned crown glinting in the low sun. He waves to the crowds and their cheers escalate, rolling around the courtyard.

“What for?” Noct speaks softly – only to Prompto, in spite of the crowd of hundreds before him. “For covering my back up there. Feels like you miss out sometimes because of it.”

Prompto smiles, even as he scours for threats through the crosshairs. “You kidding? I’m not missing anything but canapes and awkward introductions. I’m yours, always have been, always will be. You need your back covered and I’m there. Never doubt it.”

“Never have.” Noct’s voice bears all the love that, for the sake of propriety, he can’t express openly in front of a crowd. It’s okay. Prompto gets it. That’s why, by order of the Crown, there’s only room for two on this communication channel.

Prompto doesn’t settle all the time Noct’s on the landing. He doesn’t settle as he descends the staging into the crowd, and he doesn’t settle as he moves around the tables laden with food, floral arrangements, and towers of glasses. Noct greets a citizen by putting a hand on his shoulder, and Prompto tenses. The risk passes. He doesn’t settle.

Noct knows better than to partake in any of the lushly presented refreshments. He’s inherited one poisoned chalice already – he doesn’t need another one. He forbids food tasters on moral grounds, but in return only Ignis is permitted to prepare his food. Prompto will never tell him, but if the food leaves Ignis’ control before it gets to Noct he _always_ tastes it first. So far, nothing’s gone wrong - but tomorrow is another day.

Prompto forbade marquees. He can eye a clean shot at fifteen hundred feet, but he can’t see anything through the roof of a tent. There isn’t a second his heart doesn’t race whenever Noct slips out of view, even though he knows there are another twelve dedicated soldiers watching in the air, and another fifty-two on the ground.

Protecting Noct, loving Noct – they’re the two things Prompto does best. When he’s guarding, nothing can distract him from his duty. There isn’t anything more important than keeping Noct safe.

His focus is so intense that the first he knows of the gunman in the room is the muzzle of a pistol jammed into the base of his skull.

It’s less than half a second before his brain kicks in to scramble his panic. It’s a skill carved by more than a decade of managing intense fear in high stakes situations. Even though he’s approaching middle age, his reflexes are still sharp and his next moves are set in muscle memory.

He swings around, thrusting one hand out. Shoves firmly at the arm holding the gun, turning the assailant at the shoulder to unbalance them. Slides his hand down to his assailant’s elbow. Ducks hard to the right. His chances of surviving this move are around seventy percent if done properly, but they drop to ten percent unless he can pin the wrist.

The pistol fires. The bullet showers plaster from a hole in wall on his left.

Still gripping the assailant’s wrist, Prompto hurls all his weight at them as he flings himself from the chair. Together they cannonball into a bookcase, and only Prompto’s practised muscle control stops him soon enough to prevent winding himself. His assailant isn’t so lucky.

Prompto draws a sidearm from its holster and puts it to the wincing face. His earpiece is still in, and he recognises the worried voices of his glaives: _Commander, please report! Commander!_

“Drop your weapon!” Prompto hisses. “Drop your weapon, _now_.”

The man’s face splits into a manic grin. “Never,” he snaps, before the smile disappears. “ _Respublica nova illuminat_.”

The assailant is snake-tongue fast as he blows the inside of his head all over the doorframe.

Prompto staggers back, wiping his face on his arm and letting the corpse crumple to the ground. “Fuck. Fuck fuck.” He spits to get any mess out of his mouth.

He flicks his comms unit into emergency override. “Code Red, all channels, Code Red! Watchtower One is compromised! I repeat, Watchtower One is compromised! Get Redeemer out of there!”

Unholstering his second pistol, Prompto hears shouts from the floors below. There are more intruders in the stairwell. Lots more of them. But he can’t evacuate yet.

Pressing against the wall by the window, hidden as much as possible against its frame, Prompto scans the courtyard for any sign of Noct. At first he sees nothing but the sudden swell of black glaive uniforms, all piling towards a single point. All Prompto can see of their target is a pinstriped leg leading to a patent leather boot. Its appearance by the staging is brief, it’s owner quickly smothered behind a wall of glaives. It’s not enough to quell Prompto’s fear.

The crowd babbles with apprehension at the sudden activity, and heads turn to look for danger. Their anxiety seems to increase sharply, and some unidentifiable sense of doom vibrates through Prompto – right before the windows are blown out of the foyers in Watchtowers Three and Four.

They’re small blasts, designed to distract rather than destroy outright, but the crowd doesn’t know that. It erupts, bodies churning and smashing through tables and chairs to find safety as glass scatters across the once-festive courtyard.

Prompto shelters his face in the crook of his arm, but the blasts aren’t enough to shatter his windows, only crack them. It’s obvious that the world they’ve been rebuilding one painstaking stone at a time is under attack.

Ears still ringing, Prompto demands, “Eagle, is Redeemer secure?

He sees a familiar blue flicker behind Gladio as Sword of the Father is drawn. In exchange for his survival, the gods had taken most of Noct’s magic – leaving his glaives with only physical weapons, and he alone capable of summoning from the Armiger.

“Redeemer is secure.” Noct’s voice shakes, but Prompto can’t tell if it’s rage or grief. Surplus adrenaline triggered by his love’s voice mutes his ability to tell.

Gladio edges to the front of the glaives, the Aegis Shield in one hand, Hyperion glinting in the other. He glances up, mouth moving, and Prompto hears his voice clearly over the comms: “Commander Argentum, report in via channel twenty-two!”

Channel twenty-two is heavily secured, and reserved for Crown use only. Prompto doesn’t think twice about switching. He knows that only the trusted ears of Noct, Gladio, and Ignis will be able to hear him.

“Prompto! You all right?” Gladio’s voice is gruff with alarm. “What’s going on up there?”

“I’ve got one covert assailant down, more in the stairwell!”

“How many?”

“Don’t know! More many!” Prompto grits his teeth as he adds, “They’re using Nifler guns! My attacker told me _respublica nova illuminat_ right before he turned his grey matter into grey splatter.”

“Light of the New Republic,” Ignis says, and his concern is sharp. “Further attacks may be imminent.”

Noct speaks before that line of conversation can continue. “Hold your position! I’m coming!”

His worry is blatant, and Prompto’s response jolts out as panic. “No way, Noct! You get to cover! I’ve got this!”

“I’m not leaving you up there – ”

“Noct – “

“Don’t ask me to – ”

“ _No_ , Noct!” Prompto uses his ‘I’m mad at you, glaives’ voice to interrupt, but quickly softens it. “My dude. My lover. You have a job to do, and so do I. Your job is to get to cover. My job is to make that possible.”

Prompto watches from above as Gladio muscles Noct back out of sight of the closest watchtowers. He switches channels so he doesn’t have to hear Noct’s continuing protests.

“Watchtower One has been taken! All my glaives, report!”

Watchtowers Three and Four report attempts to hold their positions, but like Prompto have intruders on the ascent from their destroyed foyers. Thankfully they’re manned by two of his most experienced glaives. Watchtower Nine reports Crownsguard and Kingsglaives making their way towards the invaded towers.

“Redeemer is secure, I repeat, Redeemer is secure,” Prompto tells his glaives, moving towards the doorway. He can’t risk standing still any longer. “Watchtowers Two and Five to Thirteen, surrender your positions and extract Deen and Flores from Watchtowers Three and Four. Do whatever you have to do, but make sure you all report in tomorrow or we’ll lose that perfect attendance score.”

He clicks his teeth as the rattle of tens of pairs of feet gets closer. “Don’t go easy, brethren,” he says. “Give ‘em hell.”

There’s no need to be stealthy as he treads towards the doorway of the office he’s been nested in. The intruders already know exactly where he is. He steps over the corpse, both guns ready.

Nobody’s visible on the stairwell yet. For his attacker to have got to him so silently he had to have used the elevator, which means Prompto might not be as alone as he’d first thought. This isn’t a lone wolf attack. This is a co-ordinated assault, and somebody knew he would be alone here in this watchtower.

Prompto races past the stairwell and through an office doorway opposite the bank of elevators. He sweeps the room, making sure he’s alone before turning his attention back to the corridor.

The grand half-moon floor marker atop each elevator shows twelve. In sequence, each hand ticks over to thirteen.

Prompto’s shaken the hand of the architect who designed this building. He knows the plans for it like the back of his hand. He knows the discrete power supply for the elevators is on the fourteenth floor, and that there are electrical master switches every eight floors. He also knows the fireman’s override is at street level, visible from the basement room containing all the CCTV servers. That’s the level of detail he needs to make a sniper’s nest to protect Noct, how he attempts to master the environment he’s in.

He has two choices now. Make it to the nearest fire escape and hope there aren’t enough attackers to cover that stairwell – or get to the twenty-fourth floor before the elevators do, put the power out in this section, and hunker down until the Kingsglaive retake the building. He can’t risk going down to the sixteenth floor – there’s too much chance he’ll run into trespassers. He can only go up.

The hand of each gilded floor marker turns to fifteen and with that, the opportunity to use the fireman’s override key for the elevator is gone, too.

Prompto is fast on the main staircase, but not fast enough to escape the notice of the intruders below him. Yells and bullets ricochet off the walls, but only the bullets fragment the plaster. White and grey pieces of it scatter in front of him, then behind. He doesn’t pause to return fire. He can’t afford to slow.

At every landing he dives across the hall to press the elevator call button, trying to slow the hoards who might outrun him in the elevator. He makes it up another four flights before his breath starts to thin.

“I am getting too old for this shizzle,” he pants into his comms, turning onto the twenty-second floor and continuing to head up. “Running upwards always goes wrong in the movies.”

He doesn’t hit trouble until the twenty-third floor. He doesn’t even notice at first, except his feet stop paying attention and he’s flooded with adrenaline so hard it makes him feel sick. He stumbles, grabbing the bannister as he drops to his knees.

On the most basic level Prompto knows he has to get up, to push onwards. If he stops here he’s done for. He stumbles upright, cursing the lost time. His only comfort is that his attackers must be as exhausted as he is.

Prompto fires down into the stairwell, his heart beating fast at the pause. It’s only then he sees blood pooling fast around his left boot. It looks too dark to be arterial. The puddle is expanding quickly – he’s been hit, and the bullet nicked something important.

Moving more slowly up the staircase, he touches his chest. Not there. Shoulder? No. Stomach? Can’t be. Hip?

His hand comes away from his uniform smothered in deep red. “Oh. Crap.”

He’s pushed through worse out in the field, but not without help, and not without magic. He laughs at himself as he realises: after that big show he made of making sure Noct didn’t follow him up, he’s going to need an extraction. Gladio will never let him live it down.

Prompto switches channels. “Igster? You there?”

Ignis answers as though he’s been on tenterhooks. “What is it? You sound wrong.”

“Yeah, just. There’s a big vein that passes through the hip, right?”

“The femoral vein, why?” It takes less than a second for Ignis to make the connection. “Are you hurt?”

Prompto’s not going to casually answer that. “Is Noct on comms?”

Noct’s voice is urgent. “Answer Iggy – are you hurt?”

Prompto can see red puddles wherever his left foot has been. Splashes of blood strike through the white quartz of the stairs like exclamation marks. “Uh. Yeah.”

Noct sounds almost breathless when he says, “We’re coming.”

“The Kingsglaive and Crownsguard have every other building back under Crown control,” Gladio says. “You held them off, you did your job, now go lock down in a room somewhere and hold out until we get there.”

“They knew I was the biggest threat, then?” Prompto laughs to himself as his vision starts to blur. “These guys, coming for my watchtower first?”

“They know you’re a double threat,” Noct says.

Gladio growls, “Triple.”

“Quadruple,” Ignis finishes. There’s a determined frostiness to his voice.

Prompto doesn’t want to think about the assailants making their way up the stairs after him. Somewhere far distant, he can hear the declarations of Crownsguard. He imagines them clearing a path for Noct while he continues to climb arduously, still holding both pistols and leaning over to return fire whenever he has an opportunity.

With the landing of the twenty-fourth floor in sight, Prompto pushes harder. He catches movement on the staircase opposite and below him, and shoots down an assailant there before she can raise her gun to fire. The invaders are close now, much closer than Prompto would like.

He leans hard against the bannister, aims both pistols, and takes out the first three invaders that come into view. He can duck hunt like this for a while, but at some point soon he’s not going to be able to focus anymore. As it is, he’s targeting them mostly on the colours of their clothing against the white stairwell, rather than trying to make an accurate shot.

“You still with me?” Noct’s voice is the centre of the world. “Don’t even think you can renege on our deal.”

“What, me?” Prompto pants. “When have I ever turned down nookie?” He shoots down a man in a red shirt with _LONG LIVE THE LIGHT OF THE REPUBLIC_ scrawled on it.

Prompto hears the hum of Noct’s sword, accompanied by the scream of whoever it cleaved. He can’t hear it in both ears though, so his brothers are still too far away.

Despite Noct’s aggressive kiai as he takes down another screamer, his voice is thin when he speaks. “When you turn down nookie or food, that’s when I know something’s wrong with you.”

“Nothing wrong with me, dude. Walk in the park.” Prompto shoots down a man in a purple jacket and white sneakers, but he can barely keep his hand from trembling anymore.

With backup on the way Prompto had just expected to sit and pick off the intruders for as long as they kept coming. All they needed to do to save themselves was not attack. He doesn’t expect to hear the thud of feet coming from the just-visible twenty-fourth floor.

Looking up from his crouch, he finds a group of three men standing above him. Each of them is in the process of raising their gun.

The service elevator. They must have caught the service elevator. There’s no way Prompto could have got to that as well as the public elevators.

Prompto throws himself back against the wall, almost slipping in the blood around his feet. From there he raises one gun to the never-ending stream of idiots climbing the stairs, and one to the new arrivals with him in their sights.

He roars with the effort of splitting his attention. Kneecapping the newcomer on the left gives the two others pause for thought. While they’re thinking, Prompto puts a bullet in the chest of another stair-climber, then puts a bullet in the forehead of the landing-stander quickest to recover, following with a chest-shot to the slowest. _You’ve sent goddamned rookies in here to die_ , Prompto thinks, and his disgust at the Republic knots itself even tighter.

The tired chasers in the stairwell finally realise he’s more work than he’s worth. They huddle on the staircase just out of his sights, and an argument takes place while they decide how to proceed. In the pause, Prompto tries to coerce his dulled instincts into a plan of his own.

Ignis will know what to do.

“Hey, Iggy?” he asks, hardly recognising his own voice. He sounds like he’s pulled a seventy-two hour shift on sentry watch in Lestallum. Feels a bit like it, too.

“They’ve jammed the elevators. We’re having to take the stairs,” Ignis says tartly. “Things have gone quiet up there. Are you all right?

“Service elevator is – ” and Prompto realises his mistake. He twists to rectify it just as the mistake crawls to the edge of the landing on mangled knees and, with a hand shaking from the effort, fires a bullet into Prompto’s chest.

Prompto didn’t feel the bullet that struck his hip. This one is different. There’s a curiously powerful thud as it hits him, like being kicked by a Behemoth, then another as it exits somewhere near his left kidney. He feels the bullet’s path as searing heat, before pain rushes over him to his ears and he gropes at his chest.

The interloper doesn’t get to relish his victory. Prompto’s return fire dispatches him via the throat, but that’s more by accident than planning.

Another wave of pain overtakes Prompto. He feels oddly like he’s drowning, as though the world has tuned a shade of aqua and he’s breathing in water.

Over the comms he hears three voices, all vying for his attention. Noct’s comes to the fore – always has, always will, though Prompto isn’t sure how much always he has left now.

“What happened!? Prompto! Tell me what happened?!” Noct’s voice echoes in and out, in and out. Prompto tries to align his breathing with it, but he can only hiccough breaths.

“Prompto, were you hit?” Ignis sounds frantic, too. For a matching set of three he just needs –

“Dammit, Prompto! Respond!!”

“Haaa. I did a stupid thing.” Prompto slides to the stairs, trying to find a comfortable place to sit and make space for the pain. There isn’t one. He drops both of his pistols and closes his eyes to attempt ripping the agony out of his chest. His fingers claw his jacket ineffectively. Tapping his head against the wall doesn’t control the endless moan of pain, either.

Gladio’s the one who always recognises a thing for what it is. “You’re hurt bad.”

“No, ‘m not. Iss okay. I got ‘im back.” Prompto gasps, but the sensation of drowning is becoming acute. He hears Noct’s wordless distress, and all he can think is: _I’m so stupid._

“Hold on for me, I’m almost there,” Noct’s breaths are raw and all his kingly propriety is gone, stripped like fur before leathering.

Prompto’s panting becomes more pronounced. “I didn’t get to a room. Sorry.”

“What, you some kind of rookie?” Gladio’s tone is too grave for the joke to be funny, but Prompto attempts a gasping laugh anyway.

“Nah,” and his breath catches, “Today I graduate.”

He has to find a way to lay down. He edges down the stairs to the last landing. He’s in view of the idiots here, but they seem to have lost their spirit for the fight.

“Prompto. Prompto. Keep talking to me, lover. I need to hear you.” The raggedy words don’t hide Noct’s tears, and it hurts Prompto to know he put them there with his own stupidity. Then he realises he can hear his lover’s voice in both ears – in one it’s tinny and small, and in the other it echoes up from the stairwell. They’re near.

“I’ll just… be lying down here…” Prompto falls down two steps to crumple onto the landing. His lack of grace shouldn’t be funny, but he’s going to be too dead to appreciate the joke soon so he laughs to stop fear overwhelming him.

 “A medical crew is on its way up in the service elevator, Prompto. Just keep still, and we’ll be with you momentarily.” Ignis sounds as though every muscle in his body is stretched to its limit.

They’re doing everything they can. Prompto never doubted them. It’s his body he doubts now.

“Lover,” Prompto breathes. “Still there?”

“You know it,” Noct says. Prompto imagines him taking two stairs at a time. It makes him smile, but it soon turns into him gritting his teeth against pain. Heaving a breath, he feels the wash of tears on his temples.

Weird, since he’s definitely drowning. Surely tears should just become part of the water around him? They don’t stop, though. They worsen as he states, “I can’t.”

“No, _I_ can’t!” Noct’s voice is high. “I can’t do any of this without you. I don’t know how to and I don’t want to learn.”

Moments from the past twenty years flicker across Prompto’s mind. The times they’ve loved each other, hurt each other, stood by one another, protected one another, been passionate with one another. The first time Noct told him he loved him, at a hotel straight out of an erotic novel in one of the most romantic places in Eos. The next day, coming down with the Cloneseeker virus that forged what they were to each other. The acceptance of his history, his secrets, his self. Salty-sweet kisses at beauty spots, and sex in caravans so dirty and rusted that Prompto worried they’d catch tetanus. The eventual reclamation of Insomnia. The ascension of the One True King.

He’d slept so well after that first time, well-loved and complete.

Imagining that moment reflexively relaxes Prompto’s body, muscle by muscle, tendon by tendon. As each muscle unwinds, he seems to lose his claim over it. The fear he’s been choking back comes to his throat, demanding permission to speak on his behalf.

Prompto hefts a sob out of his ruined chest. “I’m tired.”

“Don’t sleep, baby, don’t sleep. Don’t sleep.” Noct’s never sounded so wrecked. “Don’t make me. Don’t make me do without you, gods, don’t make me.”

Prompto bangs his head against the stone floor, feeling overly full and with his mouth and nose choked with blood. He feels a trill of horror, as though the indicator on his scales of probability just shifted from ‘survives and thrives’ to ‘dies in his lover’s arms’.

Not yet. Not yet. His job’s not done. Noct’s got too many years left in him. He’s lost so much already, and Prompto doesn’t want to cause him more pain.

 Prompto ran for miles with Gladio, Ignis and Noct, all across Eos, for months. He’d recognise their footsteps with or without the clumpy boots and angry shouts of the Kingsglaive to accompany them. Of all the bootsteps, the scrape of Noct’s limp stands out above them.

“Do you hear me?” Noct says, followed by a thin intake of breath and a reflexive cry of dismay. Prompto knows he’s got a visual on him. Noct’s distress makes him want to reach for his lover, to comfort him, but he can’t even get a finger to respond anymore.

Shaking arms sweep Prompto half off the cold quartz floor, and the insistent heat of Noct’s body through his shirt is the only thing his senses are good for. There’s a warm, fading pleasure as Noct presses their cheeks together, issuing damp, incomprehensible promises. Blood is squeezed or swept out of Prompto’s mouth and nose so he can breathe, and he’s encouraged to cough to get rid of clots.

Prompto tries to tell Noct that he’s the king of his heart, but the words won’t come.

As Ignis and Gladio come into view, and gloved paramedics descend the stairs like plain-clothed messengers of the gods, Prompto decides one thing for sure.

He is _not_ going to die like this.


End file.
